Nevermore: A Cal Leandros Novel (5 page)

“Seen a woman stare at her own twice as much,” he finished, almost free of the rubble I’d buried him in. He was abruptly calmer now, oddly so, to what I’d have counted as beyond the strange and eerie at his age. Getting his ass kicked by what he knew, absolutely had complete faith was a monster. Hell, considering that, he was practically relaxed.

And that . . . that was a giveaway.

I knew what that attitude meant.

His lips curved, sharp and lethal, and that softer-edged face became as hard as the one I wore. All the uncertainty and fear inside him was gone. He had reached for more than a baseball bat and a gun under the bar from earlier. He’d gone for what was a hundred times more deadly than a thirty-eight. A phone with an emergency code. The jagged-glass smile widened. It was an expression I recognized well.

I know something you don’t know.

Unfortunately I did know. I had some serious talking to do ahead of me to get out of what was to come, but I’d expected that. I groaned in annoyance and moved my right hand, fingers still tapping, a fraction enough that the point of the switchblade went between my fingers instead of through the back of my hand. Cal’s own hand had appeared from beneath the bar along with the rest of him as he stood, swaying scarcely any. The knife throw had been damn fast, impressive in a kid his age, but damn fast wasn’t good enough anymore.

“I’d forgotten about that too,” I mused. “Took it off a drunk hooker whose boyfriend was her pimp slash cop of all things. The
To Protect and Perv
engraved on it was classic.”

It wasn’t the most lethal choice he’d latched onto below the counter, that I knew for a fact, but I liked it. I had fond memories of it. I might keep it.

Then came the fact.

I’d already admitted to myself that I hadn’t thought in the past on how a near twin would react to seeing himself. In the end, I didn’t need to think about it. He would see what I would’ve seen—a twisted genetic mirror, a relative in the worst possible sense. It was all either of us could comprehend. I knew how he would respond. I knew what he would do. We were the same—how could we act otherwise?

I knew what both of us would do: We’d call in our brother. It was what I’d been waiting on—someone who had brain cells and logic to drive them. We were going to need a huge amount of that logic now.

“Whatever you are, whoever you are, move away from him and you’re dead.”

It was his voice, frigid ice that was echoed in the cold metal of the katana blade resting against the nape of my neck. It was my brother’s voice and it hurt to hear it. Hurt like fucking hell, but at the same time it brought me back to life. Confusing as shit, but both were true. I’d been all but dead from the moment I’d appeared in that alley. Nothing had seemed real, not the people, the buildings, the city . . . not me.

Until now.

It was absolutely Niko, all of it. The voice, the katana, the fact that he didn’t say “step back from him
or
you’re dead.” No, there was no choice there. It was “step back from him and you are still dead.”

“That kind of honesty isn’t the best incentive, Nik. For future reference.” I sat up slowly, the edge of the katana’s blade against my skin every millimeter I moved, then turned my head carefully enough to not incite immediate decapitation to look at him over my shoulder. I let him see my face, my eyes the same color as his, Cal’s, our mother’s eyes. I let him see because I knew who could. Cal probably didn’t have the capability to overcome the distrust that was more a part of him than the humor or the monster genes. But Niko was smart. Niko could see the truth . . . hopefully.

I almost choked on my next words. At the last second, though, I managed to confess as casually as I decidedly did not feel. Apart from my effort at casual, I said the words exactly as I felt them. Warm and true.

“Hey, big brother. I’ve missed you.”

“And please don’t cut off my head.”

That hasty addition wasn’t due to an unrealistic fear. The casual let’s-all-be-calm attempt had been for a reason. Niko was not a fan of the unexpected, especially not around his little brother. It made him twitchy, although he was a statue on the outside. It hit him internally, where he thought no one could see. No one did, except for me.

Seeing him turned out to be worse than hearing him had been.

I wouldn’t have thought it possible. I grinned anyway, one of my rare authentic ones. I couldn’t help it. I hurt, God, I hurt, but . . . it was Nik. It was Nik and he was right fucking here. It was my big brother who’d kicked my ass in sparring just yesterday without half trying, and yet now, like my younger self, he was a baby. Tall, muscular but flexibly so and one of the best in the world with any kind of sword. A deadly lethal MMA freaking baby.

All right, not a baby, but there’s a big difference between twenty-eight and twenty, especially in the lives we led. Rode hard and put up wet should’ve been stamped across our ass.

“Always your brother’s keeper. I’ve told you about that. That I can take care of myself,” I said ruefully. “Unfortunately that hasn’t proven true.” No, it had not. “But now you’re here, it’s a party.” The pressure of the blade increased, unimpressed with me, my words, my everything. My brother was not and had never been or would be an easy man to impress—that was a fact.

“I did ask about not taking my head already. You wouldn’t do that to me, your little brother, would you, Niko
Pali
-
busno
Leandros? It’s the only one I have and you’re always telling me even one brain isn’t enough to keep me alive. What would I do without one at all?” I didn’t deny the truth of it. I had done some sincerely stupid shit in my life.

“Then there’s the fact that I’ve come one hell of a long way, eight years to be exact, to see you and . . . shit . . . myself,” I added.

I studied him harder than I had Cal. At this point Nik was in every way more intelligent, imaginative, and reasonable than Cal . . . and me, Cal eight years later. We weren’t ever going to be as smart as Niko. He was also a better fighter than eighteen-year-old Cal, although that Cal was innately cunning. He was also genetically gifted or cursed in his juvenile opinion, but it worked or would in the future and that’s what counted. Cal, though, could wait.

Niko couldn’t.

And this
was
Niko, twenty or twenty-eight, I needed him on my side; I needed him invested. He was my best hope. Cal . . . the younger me . . . he was good with a gun, but he didn’t have our more lethal fighting abilities yet. The kind you can’t buy but are born with, and the ones you can’t use until Auphe puberty hits you like a sledgehammer. They were the same skills I didn’t want to use in front of the two of them if I could avoid it. They weren’t ready to see what I could do, no one else needed to know, and then there was the prospect of driving Cal into a flashback ending in a foaming psychotic split.

I could say from experience that a theme park waiting to happen, they were
not
.

For now I was waiting to see if Niko was the same as I recalled. I hadn’t bothered to guess. Big brothers are always giants in our memories. And at eighteen I had worshipped my big brother . . . in the same way I had at five . . . and at twenty-six. What had he been like though, not seen through the haze of that little brother reverence? What was the reality of him now when Cal was eighteen, he was twenty, and everyone in the world was assumed to be against us?

As most of them had been.

“You’re saying you’re Cal?” he questioned slowly, but I wasn’t fooled. After twenty-six years I recognized suspicion and surprise on my brother’s face when I saw it. He had a hundred masks to hide his emotions, but none of them worked on me. “You look almost identical, save for the scars”—Nik was more observant on that than the younger me as some things never did change—“but you could be a relative and you know the kind of relative I’m speaking of.” Not the human kind . . . not the all human kind at least. “Then again, you know my name.” And that wasn’t possible was what swam unsaid under those words.

“Yeah, yeah. Eight years changes you some, okay? I’ll invest in a skin care regimen in the future if it makes you happy. And, yes, I’m Cal. An improved, faster, sleeker, undeniably extra ass-kicking future version, but I’m Cal.” I didn’t pay attention to Junior’s offended rant at that. I stayed focused on Niko. As for knowing his name . . . “Little Billy-goat. That’s your middle name, because you were stubborn; from day one Sophia said you were probably the only baby who potty trained himself in three days from birth.”

Swiveling back to Cal, I made no further move to vault down from the countertop. Neither did I react to the edge of the blade of Niko’s sword following me. “And Caliban
Beng
-
rup
Leandros. The monster. The devil of silver.” Caliban for half-breed monster and
Beng
-
rup
for silver devil. “That describes an A—a Grendel”—because neither of them would know the word “Auphe” as they hadn’t met . . . hadn’t met the one who’d
told them yet—“all over, doesn’t it? Sophia had a knack for being a hateful, hurtful but one damn well-read bitch.”

I laid down the final proof with a familiar and affectionate exasperation I couldn’t have stopped if I’d tried. Nik was careful in all our years. I was used to it. “Could anyone else know what I know and as a bonus be this annoying and obnoxious?”

He considered that for a moment as a very fair point, but gave a small negative shake of his head. “Killing you would be easier and safer than believing you,” he said as matter-of-fact as calling in a take-out order. Great. Nik would kill anyone to save his brother. I had never guessed it’d be me. That was serious irony there. I was about to gate my neck to a safer location—the hell with Cal’s possible psychosis. It wasn’t as if I could save them both if my own brother killed me first. But just before I did, Niko exhaled and let the katana fall down to his side. “Unfortunately, I do believe you. I know what could be my brother when I see him . . . and hear him and his tactless tongue.” How about that? Obnoxious and annoying finally paid off for me.

“Time travel.” He didn’t ask it, he said it—as if it were not simply the only option, but so obvious that he pitied those who didn’t know that. He was freaking smart as they came. That would never change with his age. “Hmmm. Interesting. However—” His voice sharpened.

“Say that word again, call him monster again, and I will go with the easy route. I’ll take your head and make a new future, not yours, for my brother and me. As no matter what you say, you are
not
him. You are not my brother. You could be, you might be, but right now you are only the possibility of one.” I’d forgotten about how touchy Niko came to that word when it was applied to the brother he had now. Fiercely, rabidly, intensely touchy.

“Okay. I’ll be good.” That made him twist the katana’s grip in his hand, more skeptically prepared than before. “Not good, that would be suspicious. I’ll be as good as I’ve ever been. How’s that? I’ll do my best to not kill me
over the M word. Better?” I pulled the switchblade out of the scarred wood, retracting the blade, tossed it back to Cal, and slid off the counter back down to the floor.

“Heads up though,” I added. “I become used to that word down the road. You will too. You won’t like it, but you’ll get over it. You might want to try sooner rather than later on that, if you can, or you’ll be beating the living shit out of assholes right and left twenty-four seven.”

Niko
was
as I remembered him. Tough, willing to take out a threat to his brother without a second or first thought. He had no rose-colored glasses involving anyone except me . . . his version of me at least. Tough as hell when it came to anyone else, one protective son of a bitch when it came to his little brother.

He did look younger to me than I’d have thought. I didn’t know if he would have to anyone else. His face, too, was a tiny bit fuller, his build a shade less leanly muscular and iron-hard. In my imagination, Niko was ageless. In reality he was human. Mortal. Born with an expiration date. The Auphe lived a long, long time unless another Auphe had killed them for shits and giggles. I didn’t know about me, if I’d eventually age or not.

I didn’t know and I didn’t want to know.

Shaking off the thought, I concentrated on the rest. The long dark blond braid was there, the dark clothes and long coat, the forbidding expression now fading that said he’d fight to the death if you gave him a reason. He was Nik in all the more important ways. And he was here, right here . . .
real
 . . . and that was something I couldn’t . . . didn’t . . .
fuck
. I dropped back onto the stool next to the one I destroyed, propped my elbows up, and let my head fall into my hands.

I had time for other issues but not time for a psychotic breakdown of my own. Accepting this Niko was correct was the better road to take, sanity-wise. I wasn’t his brother, simply the potential of one.

Cal, full of empathy as usual—because if Niko went into a box labeled
NOT MY BROTHER
then Cal went in one labeled
NOT ME
. It was the only way to survive mentally.
“Me? How can he be me? You don’t believe this bullshit, do you, Nik?” Cal demanded, flicking the lever on the switchblade I’d just returned, and made an effort at stabbing my hand again. This being the hand that was holding up my head. At my count, this was the third or fourth attempt at profound bodily harm and I was done with it.

I had the switchblade out of his grip before he was able to trim a single strand of my hair. I’d done it with a trick, a twist, and a lift that Goodfellow had taught me, combined with a speed that had made it virtually invisible. I twirled it with one hand, fast enough that it was a continuous circle of silver; that was one Niko had trained me to do himself and had me practice endlessly. It showed Cal how slow he’d been in his currently second try at using it.

“Look at that. Nice, huh?” I said, admiring my moves. If I didn’t, who would? “Listen to your brother when he says practice makes perfect. He’s irritating as he never shuts up about it, but he’s right. I’ve damned sure improved from the fetus-years.” Cal growled. I wondered if I growled that often and had gotten used to it enough to not notice.

“As for believing me”—I shrugged and shifted the blade to my other hand without pausing its whipping rotation—“what would you rather believe? That I am you eight years from the future or there is another half-Grendel running around. Or maybe twenty of them. Maybe a thousand.” There was a piece of the coming days he wasn’t going to be happy about, but he didn’t need to hear it. Deserved to hear it, but we had plans to make and no time to waste on revenge. Justifiable as it was.

“Besides”—I watched the silver of the blade and ignored the flicker of imaginary flames reflecting in it—“the only way I would look so much like you and have the eyes of you, Niko, and Sophia would be if Sophia whored herself to another Grendel years before Niko was born. And if she had, I don’t think she’d have repeated the experience with you . . . us. She hated us more than she loved money and that is saying something.”

I could see that one hit home, but he went on to another subject as he, like me at his age, didn’t want to think about the monstermonstermonster. “Give me that back, you thieving son of a bitch. It’s my favorite switchblade, you asshole, and you don’t get to keep it,” he growled, going back under the bar, for . . . what was left? Nothing that I remembered. That had been— Ah shit, the shotgun. Rusty, older than not only Cal but Sophia too, and bought off a guy missing three teeth. Not sawed-off, but smaller, for a thirteen-year-old ready to slaughter his first wild turkey. It worked though. We’d tested it.

“Don’t be a baby,” I advised. “Naughty toys aren’t for little boys. You tried to stab me in the head, you dick. If I see a fucking molecule of that shotgun show up in your hand, I’m taking your cute little knife here and I’m cutting off your trigger finger. And as I know us and guns and what we can use to pull a trigger, that’s ten fingers and ten toes. I’m here to save your life, so stop acting like the fucking Grendel you wish you weren’t.”

He flushed to a murderous red, a color I didn’t know existed under my pale skin, but I let it go and went on, not caring Niko had moved close enough to take us both down if he had to. “I know we slept with a knife under our mattress since we were six,” I announced flatly. “I also know we slept with a T-shirt under our pillow. It was one we stole out of Niko’s laundry when we were too old to sleep with him anymore. We slept with it because we could smell him on it. He might have only been a bed or a mattress away in the same room, but we slept with that shirt for years. We slept with it when we were fourteen and he went to college.

“Not convinced yet?” I alternated the knife again and practiced spinning it in the opposite direction. “I could tell the story of the first time we jacked off and which of Niko’s mythology books turned to the page of a mermaid with naked boobs was collateral damage.”

“No. No stories,” he denied instantly, knowing the price he’d pay if Niko found out which of his favorite books that had been. “No mermaid b— No, I believe you. You’re me . . . only old.”

Twenty-six was old? I had been such a punk. Still was, but it was less fun on the other side.

“Glad you’re caught up, Mini Me.” I slapped the knife down on the bar to be instantly snatched back by him. “Take back your poodle-sticker, no way it could take out a pig, and try not to stab me again. I get annoyed easily. You, of anyone else in the whole goddamn freaking world, should know that.” Know thyself, after all.

“We’ve established who you are, but why are you here? How are you here?” Niko would be the one with the smart questions.

“I’d like to hear why first,” Cal added. “Because right now you’re my own personal number one hell.”

I ran a finger across my T-shirt, underlining the message for the second time. “I told you. I’m you, Tiny Tim, from eight years in the future. You’ve seen the movie. Get a fucking clue. You’re Sarah Connor, someone’s out to terminate you, and I’m here to save your ass.”